Reviewed by Alicia Glass
After being framed and murdered by her fiancé, Jill Cervel finds herself punted back in time 6 years to the night she was to be engaged to the self-same murderous fiancé. Determined not to be chained to the same fate, Jill confesses love to a stranger noble, only to find him actually the man who will grow to become the kingdom’s greatest enemy, Emperor Hadis Teos Rave!
Okay so this anime is a bit of a complicated one, and gets to be rather dark, despite the name and the cutesy princess-romance-style animation we have going on. Jill Cervel is the 16 year old daughter of a minor noble family, and was engaged to the Prince of the Kratos Kingdom, Gerald der Kratos. And in the original timeline Jill’s from, Emperor Rave had already ravaged the Kingdom and slaughtered oh so many, including lots of Jills friends. Jill herself has taken to becoming a soldier, a Knight for the kingdom, and is already well-versed in commanding troops, doling out strategy and in general fighting apparently-unwinnable wars. While Emperor Rave is generally known as barely a man, wholly a monster, blackened of heart and soul and quite capable of slaughtering thousands of people wholesale without hesitation. But, wait. How did we get here? And how the hell did Prince Kratos go from formal fiancé to ignoble incestuous pervert who framed Jill and then had her murdered? Who’s the real villain here?
When Jill … reincarnates? revives? awakens in her do-over life, she’s a cute little barely-double-digits girl about to attend her would-be engagement party under the guise of a birthday party for Prince Kratos, and yet, Jill remembers everything from her previous life. Up to and including how Kratos had her framed, killed, and the incestuous relationship with his much-younger sister Faris that he was desperate to keep secret. In fact, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the ages of the various female protagonists in the anime, likely no more so than Jill herself, but the reasons for that are another closely guarded secret that belong to Emperor Rave. So lets move on to the currently-lesser of two evils, and follow Rave and Jill!
In this new-alternate timeline, Emperor Hadis Teos Rave is a man desperate for love. His extended family, those that are still alive, tend to either avoid him at all costs, or when they do deign to be in his presence, give stiff commands on how the Rave Empire should be run. And they never ever let Hadis forget that its his bloodline, and things having to do with dragons and magic and curses and fates and prophecies, that keep causing the deaths of his family members. Noone wanted Hadis to take the throne, not even Hadis himself, as that meant that everyone else qualified to hold the throne before him died when they tried to hold onto it. But Jill and her inherent magic, plus a prophecy laid down about the Rave Empire before either of them were even born, is about to try and change all that.
Somewhere mixed up in all of this mummery of fates and prophecies, of empires and rulers and dragons and gods, are the bruised and battered hearts of two characters who really do deserve love, and at least a shot at lasting happiness. While in this timeline Jill might be a bit young physically, mentally and (mostly) emotionally she is a grown-ish teenager, quite capable of making grown-up choices and carrying them out with maximum efficiency, and to hell with whomever would dare stand in her way. And Jill has decided that she is going to do everything she can to make Hadis Teos Rave feeling loved and happy and wanted, damnit, despite the protestations and machinations of everyone in the Kratos Kingdom, enemy Gods fighting each-other, and even Fate itself!
Cheer on Jill and Hadis as they struggle to save their redo world in The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor on Crunchyroll now!